The Sun Is God (23 page)

“When Herr Doctor Bethman examined Lutzow, the poor man was beyond our aid,” Engelhardt added. Then he rose from the table and explained that he had to go prepare their heroin drink.

“May I accompany you?” Will asked, “I am curious about the process.”

“Of course,” Engelhardt said.

They walked to Engelhardt's hut, which Will discovered was rather less tidy and more cluttered than the others. Engelhardt opened a jar of arak and added the heroin from another jar. The heroin was in its powder form direct from Bayer. Engelhardt carefully mixed the arak and heroin. “Now we add coconut milk, some cane sugar . . . This next part of the process will perhaps seem odd.”

Engelhardt went outside, took the laudanum to the Malagan totem, and laid it in front of it. “It is a sort of offering,” he said. Engelhardt closed his eyes and said a little prayer. Then he brought it to the table. In spite of it being a drug that had no addictive properties, Will found that he was anxious to have his turn, and when the wooden bowl appeared in front of him he took it greedily and drank his fill. After a while his breathing became deeper, his heart beat slowed, and a tremendous calm overcame him. It was still raining and his aches and fever had never quite gone away, but none of that seemed to matter much now.

Even his mosquito bites ceased to itch quite so much. The voices grew distant and soon Will found himself sitting on the river stones of the piazza, a little away from the table. He watched the others eat and talk. He watched the Malagan statue watch them. Tiredness finally drove him to the dubious safety of his torn net. But the mosquitoes wouldn't harm him here. He yawned and sank deep, deep down. Nothing would harm him here on tranquil Kabakon, one of the safe, forgotten islands that lay between New Britain and New Ireland in the deep and ancient waters of the Bismarck Sea.

17

ENGELHARDT

D
reams again. Bayer heroin dreams. He was in a place of sweet scents: lavender, poppy, cut grass. He was dreaming of Yorkshire: spring flowers on the moors and a line of black-faced men outside his father's surgery.

But then he dreamed he was walking in the jungle: hideous masked faces watching him from the trees. Finally, he dreamed of Africa: the war, the camp, the men wanting to know what to do.

“Fire! Kill them! Kill them all, sergeant! Kill every one of the bastards!”

A hand on his forehead.

“It's all right, Will, it's all right.”

“What?”

“You were having a nightmare.”

“Uh . . . I feel—everything aches.”

“What is the matter?” Kessler asked.

“I'm ill, Klaus,” he groaned. “I'm ill. Not well. I should never have come here without my quinine.”

“I will get Bethman.”

Will closed his eyes, and when he opened them, August Bethman was standing there with a stethoscope around his neck. His beard was soft, his hair golden, like a Kraut Jesus.

“He has a temperature of 101 degrees. It is not that serious. I will give him aspirin and heroin.”

“Klaus,” Will groaned.

“I am here, Will,” Kessler said.

“It's never serious with this one. I'll be dead and in my grave and he'll still be saying that it is not serious.”

“Make sure he takes these Bayer aspirin and heroin pills with a little water,” Bethman said to Kessler.

“Tell him to take his Bayer aspirin and his Bayer heroin and shove it up his arse,” Will muttered.

Bethman got up to go but Will grabbed at his wrist. “How much heroin did you give Lutzow over the course of his final crisis?” Will asked.

“He was in great pain.”

“Too much opium can kill a man, is that not so?” Kessler wondered.

“We did not kill Lutzow with too much heroin powder or pills, Herr Kessler. Engelhardt is cautious with the supply and I am, or rather I was, a physician. Now is there anything else?”

Will shook his head and Bethman turned to Kessler. “Make sure he takes those.”

Bethman left and under Kessler's relentless glare Will took his medicine. An hour later he was sitting up in the hammock and he had to admit that his head was starting to feel much better.

Kessler was dressed and looking at Will with affection.

“How do you do?” Kessler asked in English.

“Middling,” Will admitted reluctantly.

“That is German science at work!”

“German science,” Will muttered. “Where are you going anyway?”

“To talk to Karl, our pilot.”

Will grunted, and as Kessler stared at him he answered an unspoken question. “Tell him tomorrow will be the last day he has to do this. I think I have nearly everything I need now.”

“Are you sure?” Kessler asked.

“I believe so. And if I can get off this godforsaken island alive, I will tell you all about it in the safety of Governor Hahl's residence.”

“Not here?”

“I think not.”

“Are we to make an arrest?”

“I need to ask a few more questions today. But you and I will not be doing any arresting. If necessary we will return with a troop of soldiers.”

“Nonsense! All German nationals will—”

“Let us hear no more idle talk of that, Klaus; rest assured that Germans murder their neighbors in as great a quantity as everyone else.”

“You can be certain, Will, that the Germans here on Kabakon will cooperate with us.”

Will let him talk but he didn't listen to the predictable string of words that formed into one of Kessler's predictable sentences. Klaus did not understand, but he would. When his lips stopped moving, Will said: “Maybe you're right.”

“Take your time getting up,” Kessler said, giving him a fey little continental salute, before walking out into the piazza.

One more bloody day
, Will thought.

An hour later he was in his cricket flannels and straw boater. The shirt and shoes again seemed unnecessary in the oppressive heat. He found his “walking stick” and went out into the piazza.

He avoided Harry, Christian, and Schreckengost, who were loitering at the breakfast table, and made his way to Engelhardt's hut: the one that was closest to the statue of the Malagan.

“Come in!” Engelhardt said.

Will entered. Engelhardt was wearing clothes, which surprised Will. He had on a kind of coverall made of thick blue cotton, cotton that was stained nearly black by printer's ink, for in this tiny space Engelhardt was running off a series of bills from a hand cranked press.

“Ah, Herr Detective Prior!” Engelhardt said cheerfully.

“Good morning,” Will said and glanced at one of the drying bills.

He read it and translated it in his head thus:

The Society of Sonnenorden on the Tropical Paradise of Kabakon are seeking a small and limited number of enthusiastic helpers to live the ideal of Naked Cocovorism in German New Guinea.

We have discovered the secret to eternal life that has been lost to man since his expulsion from the Garden of Eden! It is a secret no longer! “Sun bathing” and a strict “vegetarian” diet are the keys to eternal life!

On Kabakon, our new Eden, we do no labor and we are free to pursue our intellectual passions! Rid yourself of the tyranny of desire. Renounce the pressure of the world! Come to Kabakon and allow your spirit to grow!

Engelhardt saw Will's eyes on the handbill. “What do you think?” he asked.

“Interesting,” Will said.

“We are going to post them up in Herbertshöhe and give them to travelers throughout the German Pacific. Tell me, in all candor, how do they seem to you, as an outsider?”

Will rubbed his chin. “Well, I do not think you should say the word “helper.” That sounds too much like there's going to be hard work, and it contradicts what you say in the next couple of paragraphs. Maybe ‘follower' would be better or ‘disciple,' and you should mention that there are ladies here. Naked women will be a big selling point in Herbertshöhe, believe me.”

Engelhardt frowned. “We do not wish to attract the wrong type of people,” he said.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” Will asked. “I am feeling a little under the weather this morning.”

“Not at all,” Engelhardt exclaimed, far too loudly for Will's fragile condition. In a more civilized tone he added: “You do not look well, Herr Prior.”

“That is what I have been trying to tell everyone.”

Engelhardt had no conventional chairs in the hut but there were a few awkward looking stools. Will sat and breathed a small sigh of relief.

“Would you like a glass of water? Or a few heroin pills?”

“No thank you.”

Engelhardt nodded. The silence grew from a few seconds to an uncomfortable half minute, which did not bother Will in the slightest, but Engelhardt was keen to get back to his printing. “As you can see, I am quite busy,” he said.

Will nodded and cleared his throat. “I am curious how you chanced upon this secret to eternal life,” he said.

Engelhardt shrugged. “It is no secret. It was known to the ancients. The myth of Eden is a reflection of a truth buried within the consciousness of all mankind. Do you read Doctor Freud?”

Not another bloody doctor
,Will thought. “He too advocates the coconut?”

“He urges us to listen to the voices in our dreams. I have listened. Bradtke listened. We went where our heart told us to go. Without the sun there would be no life anywhere in this solar system. The sun is everything!”

“Fräulein Schwab says that Schopenhauer is the key to understanding your—”

“Fräulein Schwab is a novice in our philosophy! Schopenhauer has been quite exploded. His ideas are irrelevant here.”

“Oh? Yes?”

“Nietzsche has taught us how to live. Nietzsche teaches the doctrine of the Superman. We must cultivate our passions, not reject them. That was the error of the Greeks, as I am sure you know.”

“Umm . . .”

“The late Herr Nietzsche desires us to return to the days of the Pre-Socratics, of Dionysius, when the heart did the bidding of reason, not the reverse!”

“In the Bacchanal, if I am recalling correctly from my hazy school days, men were sometimes torn to pieces by followers of the Dionysian cult,” Will said.

“Yes.”

“Do you also believe that sacrifice is necessary to achieve apotheosis?”

“What a perfectly revolting idea. We are vegetarians here, Mr. Prior. Have you learned nothing of our ways since your arrival? You are still looking at us through the eyes of that world. That world where man can barely keep up! Flying machines, telephones, motor cars. New art, new books. But here we have something more important than all of that: new men! The Romantics had a word for it:
Geistesgeschichte
—the evolving history of the human spirit. You must try and understand, Herr Prior!”

“What I must try and understand, Herr Engelhardt, are the events surrounding the death of Herr Lutzow,” Will said.

“In case you are laboring under a misapprehension, Herr Prior, I must inform you that Lutzow was not torn to pieces by anyone,” Engelhardt said.

“When did
you
first hear about Lutzow's death?” Will asked.

Engelhardt sat on the edge of his bed and shook his shaggy head. “I do not know the precise hour.”

“Was it on Saturday night? Early Sunday morning?”

“One or two o'clock in the morning, I suppose,” Engelhardt said dubiously.

“Who told you?”

“Harry.”

“He woke you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you went to Lutzow's hut?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you find there?”

“He was dead.”

“Who else was there?”

“No one.”

“What about Bethman?”

“I sent for him.”

“None of the others were awake?”

“Fräulein Schwab came immediately. Later I heard Fräulein Schwab talking to Fräulein Herzen and Helena.”

“Lutzow was dead but you didn't think it necessary to tell any of the others?”

“What good would that serve? They could do nothing.”

Will nodded. Although Engelhardt looked like a tuppeny Don Quixote, complete with cadaverous countenance, odd uniform, and ink-stained beard, his blue eyes were steady and he did not seem troubled or evasive.

“What made you change your mind about the burial arrangements for Max Lutzow, Herr Engelhardt?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were going to bury him here or at sea, but when Clark appeared with a sack of letters, you changed your mind and asked Clark to transport the body to Herbertshöhe.”

“
I
did not ask him.”

“No,
you
did not. Fräulein Herzen did. Fräulein Herzen insisted. Why do you think she did that, Herr Engelhardt?”

“I have no idea.”

“You have no idea why she insisted that Clark take Lutzow's body to Herbertshöhe?”

“None.”

Will paused until he got Engelhardt's full attention. “I think you made a mistake granting Fräulein Herzen's wish.”

“What do you mean?”

Will smiled. “We conducted an autopsy on Lutzow in Herbertshöhe. Do you know what an autopsy is, sir?”

“Yes.”

“We have a very good, patient, and observant doctor there.”

“Doctor Volker, I know of him, he—”

“Doctor Volker's dead. A new doctor. Bremmer, a diligent, careful young man.”

“A Jew?”

“A Jew, yes.”

“I have known intelligent Jews and unintelligent Jews.”

“Bremmer is of the former type.”

Engelhardt nodded. The room was oddly silent now, as if the inanimate objects were holding their breaths, and both men could feel the tension being generated by this exchange, a tension as palpable as the electric current or a change in pressure.

“What did your new doctor discover?” Engelhardt asked.